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’In It for the Long Haul’
New Gateway president will oversee consolidation, new challenges
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Business New Haven
11/29/1999
By: Michael C. Bingham
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A native of Jackson, Tenn., Dorsey Kendrick assumed the presidency of Gateway Community-Technical College on August 16. She previously was executive vice president of Milwaukee (Wisc.) Area Technical College, where she oversaw academic affairs, student services and personnel for the past five years..
What attracted you to education in the first place? Do you come from a family of educators?
My mother was a maid and my father a factory worker. But education was something that was inculcated in us all the way through as children. When I got my undergraduate degree, I really wasn't planning on going into education. I took a job right out of college at the Marine Bank in marketing research. My husband, however, was a teacher. After I had taken the job at Marine Bank I took maternity leave after I had my first child, and through circumstances got an opportunity to interview for a position that in education and ever since then I have been in education. My husband is an educator; lots of my sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law are in education; my sister is in education. My son is a teacher; my daughter works for Workforce Development. Most of my friends and family members are connected to education in so way or the other.
You were in Milwaukee a long time. What attracted you to Connecticut?
To tell you the truth, I really knew nothing about New Haven, Connecticut. I had a perception about Connecticut because of the prestigious schools on the East Coast, and I had gone to Harvard one summer and had participated in the [Institute of Education Management] IEM program. I had a feel for the East Coast; I knew that charter schools were something that had been done, here so that piqued my curiosity. And you have Yale, and I thought, well, maybe this is a good area. [Connecticut has] a national reputation in term of high socioeconomic opportunities, in terms of good educational institutions here, so may not be a bad place if I'm selected president.
What have you discovered since you arrived? Any surprises?
From a professional perspective, I found that there is a high concentration of people of color here who are in key management and leadership positions. Which I really think is great, because in the Midwest, of the 16 colleges [in the Wisconsin community college system], not one was headed by an African-American president. In terms of higher education: For a small state, there are a lot of colleges and universities and so of course that's kind of interesting - I haven't been anywhere this small with that many schools.
What are Gateway's challenges?
The school really needs community and financial support. When I've gone to the other schools that make up the 12 colleges, many of them have been where Gateway is trying to go - that is, trying to identify a new location, building a new campus, merging the two campuses [New Haven and North Haven] into one. I just really hope the community continues to support the school and help it get the kind of technology, the kind of facility and the kind of programs and services it should provide for the city of New Haven. That kind of summarizes, not so much disappointment - let's just say I've had some 'teachable' moments.
How is the consolidation going to take place, and over what period of time?
The plans are that a report was released in June 1998 recommending site [options] for Gateway. The next part is what I call an academic master plan for the college: What kind of services do we want to provide? What kind of programs do we want to offer for the community? Are we interested in a community center within the institution? What is our growth potential for the future? From that point we will than move into the next phase, which is the board will make some recommendations on funding. I don't know the process that's in place for getting that funding - if, in fact, [state] legislators are going to commit any more and whether Gateway will get the same opportunities that the other schools had, and that's to build a new campus.
Where will the new campus be?
The board has approved the recommendation to keep the college at its current site. That means that the college will have to be expanded. So we're looking at how we're going to expand it, and what that means in terms of buildings.
How long will the North Haven campus continue to exist?
I don't think that in the next three or four years anything major is going to happen. First, there's no money that's has been allocated for the building of the new facility for Gateway. Secondly, the academic master plan has not been established at the present time. We're trying to get money for that.
This is a very dynamic time in technical education. In a state [like Connecticut] with two-percent unemployment, where companies are starved for workers, how do you see where educational institutions like this are going?
There are two ways to respond: The latest demographer I heard indicated that community colleges will meet two distinct markets: the 18- to 22-year-olds, and the 45- to 64-year-olds, which means that those individuals coming directly out of high school that need to get some skills to get a job - we certainly will be able to facilitate that, because we have numerous associate-degree programs - 70 different programs, in fact. Gateway will certainly play a pivotal role customized training, short-term training, advanced technical training for individuals who need that extra step and are ready to move to the next level. That would certainly open the door for them moving to a four-year university and getting the credentials necessary to demonstrate that they are management.
How can we get more kids interested in taking science and math?
I took chemistry in high school; I took geometry, I took trigonometry. You learned the formulas, you learned the theoretical concepts and you built on those in college. But this is a different generation, and we need a different set of tools to try to address this generation's learning style. We have an opportunity as educators to try a variety of approaches. I think, frankly, that a lot of us have not been trained adequately on how to create the kind of interest and enthusiasm on the part of kids to get them to stick with it. It requires a different set of tools today.
One of the key issues in education is distance learning. How is Gateway looking at distance learning as a tool to reach more eople? Also, in ten years will there still be bricks and mortar in higher education?
Certainly there is interest on my part and the part of the faculty to explore getting more courses online. I think we have to figure out what our market is and what can we do in the area of distance education that's different and distinct from what everybody else is doing. To answer the second part of your question - Will brick and mortars be around ten years from now? - probably. I think the role of faculty will change, I think that they will become more facilitators of learning, do more designing of curriculum, look at more way of teaching that are not traditional.
How have you found New Haven?
When I can here I made a commitment that for the first 100 days I would spend most of my time and energy trying to get to know as many people as possible. I'm living up to that commitment and I have met a lot of people, from legislators to educators to community people. How have I found people to be? Pretty open, pretty supportive of what I'm trying to do for Gateway, encouraging and I think really interested in the college and the direction the college needs to go. They like my enthusiasm, my candor, so I'm feeling pretty good about the experience so far. I wish my family were here. My husband is still in Wisconsin teaching, but that should change at the end of the school year.
What would you like businesses to know about you and about Gateway's mission?
I believe that every human has the right and opportunity to maximize their human potential, and that education is directly related to maximizing human potential. As life-long learners, no matter how much you know or how much you achieve, you have a responsibility to insure that people you touch as employers have that same opportunity and option. I see Gateway as being a place where employers and employees both can partake of new learning and advanced learning in fields in which our college provides programs and services. They should insure that their employees not only know about Gateway but use Gateway as a way of helping them move up, because acceptability, respectability and upward mobility are all tied into teaching and learning. As for me personally, when I came here I made a commitment that I would stay as long as I could make a difference. And if I cannot make a difference then I'll get out of the way for a person who can. I'm here for the long haul.
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